Salem's Witches (Neitherlands Book 1), page 7
“Shut up. Do not speak the name of His Highness in here. You’re not fit for it.” He said ‘Highness’ in such a way you could hear the capital H. He then leaned close to Annabella and whispered, “But here between us, let me tell you I’m fully aware of what went on. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure that little rat pays for it.”
LeFlay stepped back and pulled on the ropes that kept Annabella tied. “Annabella Bostwick, you have been found guilty of treason against the Church of Quackology. On top of that, you have also been found guilty of running away from the church in an attempt to avoid punishment. And let’s not mention deceiving the leader of the church by posing as a loving child while being nothing but a—”
“Shut up.” It was Annabella’s turn to shut him up, and LeFlay oddly shut his mouth as ordered. He didn’t seem to be used to being bossed around in such a way. “Howard’s relation with me is not your business, or the church’s. I did what I had to, and got help from those who offered it. You wanted me? Here you have me. Do as you please, but keep Howard out of this. You already have him eating from the palm of your hand anyway.”
LeFlay smiled. “That fire… “You’d make a great leader if you put your heart in it. That desire to make things work the way you want them to, and to call out and confront anyone in your way…” He leaned closer to Annabella. “It’s such a huge turn-on. Why won’t you join me? We could truly make Quackology great—way beyond the ridiculously small ambitions of your…putative father.”
Anabella spat at LeFlay’s face. For a moment she feared he’d choke her there and then, but instead he jumped back and stared at her for an instant. Then he struck her in the midriff with his cane. Annabella winced in pain, but LeFlay didn’t seem to notice.
“I guess you’ll never understand the importance of this church. All that work trying to get you to become the next leader, and the first chance you get to take control you just leave. You could, you know, we could band together and bring order to this world. First the church, then the city…eventually the Neitherlands. We could cleanse this filthy plane and build a world of order… Oh, but you refuse to. You little, pitiful coward.” He stared at her as if she were a particularly revolting little insect. Annabella felt like telling him who the revolting little insect was. “I can’t understand why that idiot allowed you to leave the church, but don’t worry about it. I’ve spoken to the jury, and they are all very much interested in giving you a fitting punishment for—”
A knock sounded on the door.
“What is it?” LeFlay yelled. Annabella would bet he’d have whoever interrupted him occupying her place the following day.
Nobody stated who they were, or what they wanted. Instead a parchment was slid under the door. LeFlay went there, grabbed it, opened the door, and found nobody on the other side. “Cowards, always scared of facing just punishment…” he said, as he read the parchment.
Then his face went pale, his expression aghast, and it looked as if he had just been found out and the city watch was about to get him, leading this story to an unexpected early ending.
“I can’t believe this,” he said, his face turning red as pure rage replaced his shock. He hit Annabella with his cane once. And twice. And a third time for good luck. Annabella did her best to not react: People like LeFlay did everything just to see reactions. Receiving none denied them the pleasure they craved.
“It seems your so-called-father has managed to upstage me, and you get a reprieve. Again,” he said, gritting his teeth.
“I don’t believe that paper says I’m to walk free for eternity through whichever path I choose or does it?”
“Of course not, not even Howard is that much of an idiot,” said LeFlay, “and that is saying a lot. No, he has fashioned a new, alternate punishment for you that’ll have you removed from the city…and from my claws, at least for the time being.”
LeFlay leaned on top of her. Men like him always enjoyed whispering their dark plans to their victims. “But listen to me here, child: You will slip up again, I know you will. And once you do, I’ll be here waiting for my moment. After all, you do not make an enemy of Antoine LeFlay and live to tell the tale.”
That said, LeFlay got off of Annabella and, without bothering to untie her, turned around and left the dungeons, not without making sure to flap his cape around as he left. Men like him, it seemed, enjoyed showmanship way more than hurting others.
5
The headquarters of the Church of Quackology was the most imposing compound into which any of the witches had ever set foot. On entering the courtyard one was greeted by three huge buildings painted in blue. The middle one was taller, the lateral ones sharing walls with it. The word QUACKOLOGY hung in golden letters from the top of the main building, with the long, thin cylinder they had as a logo above it.
The courtyard was clean and, to Veronika’s amazement, full of people coming and going. It seemed as if Quackology was a much larger religion than she and her partners had believed. For a moment they stood there, staring in amazement at the beautiful, yet scary compound that housed a religion none of them had heard of just a week before.
There was one thing that made Veronika suspicious of the true intentions of the cult, not that she needed much convincing to consider a religion suspect, thankyouverymuch. While one could find excuses for the absurd, most uncommon silence reigning over the courtyard; the way in which everything seemed designed to get people to join; or how it looked like the many uniformed people were ready to swoop in and kick you out if you so much as expressed doubt, there was one thing she couldn’t get over.
The compound was surrounded by tall walls, the kind you build to keep enemies out…and adherents in. Said walls were topped with barbed wire, with a watch tower every hundred meters or so. For a church it looked like excess security, and in New Wakilork an abundance of security usually meant whoever needed it either was filthy rich, had lots of secrets, or both.
Veronika entered the main building after saying her farewells to her friends, who had agreed to separate in order to better scout the premises and learn about the cult and Ms. Bostwick’s whereabouts.
The main hall was impeccable: A well-lit room with golden walls, lots of space, and a faint smell of roses. Soon enough she found what she was looking for: A sign pointing toward a hallway where those interested in joining the church were to go.
She walked into the hallway and found a small group of people, all of them apparently new adherents. None of them spoke, they all just stood there staring at a closed door.
After a few minutes of a very silent, not at all pleasing wait, the door opened and they were let in into a huge auditorium that, to Veronika’s surprise, was almost full of people. She took a seat from the few that remained empty, wondering a how cult could attract so many people without her or her friends learning about it. Were they doing something wrong as investigators? She expected the church to have planted a handful of men in the group to boost the numbers and better control the crowd, but easily two thousand people were present. If the church had sent that many people to the auditorium to cheer on them they didn’t need to play, for they had already won the game and become a sizeable religion, larger than most in the polytheistic city.
After taking a seat, she was given a goodie bag the hosts called an “Introductory pack” to Quackology. It contained mostly propaganda: There was a pamphlet talking about the Church of Quackology with plenty of testimonies from its adherents; another pamphlet with what they called quotable quotes from T. Peter Howard; a small, cheaply printed magazine called The Moat that billed itself as the magazine for the Quackology-minded denizen of the Neitherlands; and a long-sleeved cotton shirt with black sleeves and white body, in the same model she had seen the hosts wearing.
While she thought she should peruse the material to feign interest in the cult, she was spared the experience when the lights went out and most of the audience went silent, with the few who dared raise their voices being quickly shushed. An instant later, a spotlight went on, showing everyone a tall man with dark hair and a goatee dressed completely in black and wearing a cape, of all things.
A cape. What would Salem say about a church where people wore capes? He’d probably expect the place to be illegal.
Veronika had no time to come up with an explanation for the cape, since the man’s booming voice interrupted her train of thought. “Hello everybody. I’m here to welcome you to the world of tomorrow. A world of freedom and enlightenment. A world where you, all of you, can attain success beyond your wildest dreams. For you see, no matter what you might have heard, Quackology is here to help you.”
Cheers came from random spots, and quickly most of the auditorium was cheering—a mass of believers or wannabe believers welcoming who they thought was there to save them. Veronika sneered.
“But first, I’m Antoine LeFlay, and I’m the head of affairs for the Church of Quackology. This puts me directly underneath our eternal leader, T. Peter Howard!” The curtains opened to reveal an altar with the picture of an old man on it. Veronika guessed, rightly, that the guy was T. Peter Howard. At the sight of the picture, the guests burst into clapping, punctuated with occasional shouts of blessings toward the man.
“I know we all love our eternal leader. He asked me to bring you his salutations and to thank you for your decision to join us in building a new world. He would have loved to come, but as of late he has been busy trying to attain higher levels of enlightenment. For that’s the Quackology path, the path to enlightenment!”
The man ignored the crowd, for it seemed as if everyone was hell-bent on being excited. Instead of telling them to shut up, as Veronika would have done, he just spoke out louder. “Now, let’s start the first part of today’s lecture. We are going to talk about the Path to Enlightenment, and what it takes to become Enlightened.”
The conference room went silent after several spots in the crowd shushed them. Veronika thought these spots were likely made up of Quackologists, and it was their synchronized actions what controlled the crowd.
“For you see, so far all of you have been tainted,” LeFlay went on, either not noticing or not caring that some might have found that statement insulting. “You have been tainted by a world designed to keep you from enlightenment. From the moment you were born, you were fed lies upon lies, all of them to keep you from realizing who you truly are and your true potential. But no more!”
He went on a tirade about how the world kept people from ever attaining their fullest potential, blaming nearly everything in the Neitherlands for it except, of course, his church. “Today, all of you get started on the path to enlightenment, and the first step is renouncing all those things that keep stuck where you are! Renounce all those problems you have been unable to solve that keep damaging you! Renounce those gods, those deities that you have spent a lifetime praying to who have never listened. Let go of them! The real power is in you, in all of you!”
A handful of cheers and claps were heard, and soon enough they multiplied to fill the auditorium: The malleable crowd had once again been, well, malleated. Veronika sneered again, not so secretly feeling above everyone present.
“And beyond that…” LeFlay lowered his voice, as if telling a secret to the crowd, “Renounce that ridiculous attachment to the material that Neitherlanders have been cursed with. Let go of it! Let go of money, big houses, new carriages, fancy horses. They all are nothing but obstacles on your path. You will all renounce these things, as good Quackologists do, and in renouncing them and learning to live without them, you will attain Clarity. It is only when you become Clear that you can walk the path to enlightenment, for a tainted person can’t reach enlightenment any better than a horse can pass through a keyhole.”
Veronika leaned back in her chair. It was going to be a long, annoying conference. Also, LeFlay had clearly never heard the tales of giants and the giant keyholes the giant doors to their giant houses had. She was sure horses could fit through those.
Laura felt uncomfortable as she entered the information office that doubled as a souvenir store for the big Q. Curious as she was about most things, Quackology wasn’t something she looked forward to learning about: While she didn’t share Veronika’s hatred of religion, she chose to keep her religious studies limited to those that had existed for a long time. A religion that popped out of nowhere and whose first action she knew of was being suspect in a crime and kidnapping a woman wasn’t one she felt would help her grow as a person.
After spending a few minutes looking at the Quackologist paraphernalia, which ranged from keychains to life-sized cutouts of an old man called T. Peter Howard, a young man wearing a blue quackology uniform came to speak to her.
“May I help you?” he said, smiling at her. People in such stores always smiled, and if they had a religion to sell you they smiled twice as much.
“May you?” said Laura, in what wasn’t an attempt to sound nice. She was just wondering aloud if that man would be of any help. “I just found myself a little lost here, I overheard some friends talking about this…quackology thing, and I felt curious, so I came over. What could you tell me about it?”
“We are here to offer you salvation.”
“Salvation?”
“Salvation.”
“Salvation?”
“Salv—” The man seemed to understand what Laura was asking. “Quackology is not just a religion, but a way of life. In our church we’ll help you work towards clarity and, once you achieve it, you’ll travel the path of enlightenment with us.” The man grabbed a book and handed it to Laura. It was called Scametics, and claimed to be the basis of the whole religion, along with apparently a panacea. The back-cover comment spoke of it as a technique to make everything better, and even cure diseases deemed incurable by traditional medicine.[12] “Maybe you should read this one. It explains what we do here, how we do it, and the importance of our work for the Neitherlands. It’s the most important book in Quackologist literature.”
“In quack—” It took a second for Laura to understand what the man meant by Quackologist literature. Then it took her another moment to wrap her mind around the idea that a niche religion that came out of nowhere had not just a book, but enough of them to speak of literature. “Who wrote this?” Another glance at the book answered it for her: It was the old man from the cutout.
“Why T. Peter Howard, of course,” said the salesclerk. “He wrote that book, and all the other books on our literature. He is a very prolific Quackology investigator, the founder of our church, and—” The man raised his hand, pointing it toward the skies, then lowered it. “Our celestial savior. He who has come to deliver us from the evils of Xianuu.”
“Xia—”
“Do not speak his name!” The clerk seemed scared. Laura wondered why he could speak the name and she couldn’t. “He’s the root of all evil, the unending disease, the celestial dictator, the original politician, he’s…” He sighed. “He’s all we fight against. Once you buy the book and read it you’ll understand. Xianuu has for long kept us enslaved, and it’s about time we rise up against him. Quackology is the only way to do so.”
Laura stared at the book. Then she realized she was expected to buy it, even when she hadn’t displayed any interest in spending her hard-earned cash there. “So this is what you do, then? You spend your lives fighting against a magical dictator from the skies?”
“We fight the good fight. And you will fight it with us, I know, for I can see you are a naturally good person. And what can a good person do but join us in liberating the Neitherlands?”
“What about people from other religions?”
The clerk laughed. “Other religions? You going to tell me you believe other religions? The ones that speak of gods that deal with thunder or water, or deities who control the wind? Do you really believe that crap?”
Laura’s mouth went agape. She wasn’t religious, but this man went a step further than that. He probably would have gotten along really fine with Veronika…if only he didn’t believe in something no sane person would, then had the gall of mocking other beliefs. “I’m… I’m not religious, but—”
“I knew you weren’t. You looked too much like an intelligent, decent person for that kind of idiocy. Now, will you join us today?”
The man took the book from Laura’s hands and went to the sales desk. Realizing he was going to push her towards buying the book, she did what she could to keep herself from having to pay for it, which here meant she started looking around, almost desperate.
“Aren’t you going to come?”
“I’d love to, but…” She browsed through her bag over and over, then tried to look through nonexistent pouches in her dress. “I… I seem to have lost my coinpurse!” She tried to force her voice to break and succeeded. “I can’t believe this, just on the day I find something to spend money on!” She sat on the floor, then proceeded with her best performance of a desperate tantrum: Screams, fake crying, and looking all over for places where her coinpurse could be with an expression of despair.
She thought she was off the hook until the man gave her the book.
“I think the church can spare this one copy for you,” he said. “After all, having everyone learn of Xianuu’s evil and our task in this world is more important than a handful of coins, don’t you think?”
Laura grabbed the book, then felt forced to smile at the man. The expression of despair never left her face, for it had found a reason to stay. “I…thank you,” she said. The man tried to hug her. She backed off as best she could.
Then she left the building with her new, free book she doubted she’d ever read.
The conference went on. LeFlay took his time to explain what was required for people to attain Clarity in what he called the ideal way: The Church wanted them to leave everything behind in order to fully dedicate their lives to Quackology. If that wasn’t possible, the good quackologist’s action, as they called it, was to donate a portion of their income to the church to help support those committed enough to renounce everything else for the cause. The ones who renounced everything else were also recommended to donate it all to the cause. The final message he gave before leaving the stage was a simple phrase: “The good Quackologist will donate all he can to his church.”
